JohnCNA

I did stumble across the APK after a longer search. It appears to work on my phone, running Android 13. The link is below if anyone else needs it. https://metaverse-augmented-reality.en.softonic.com/android

Going on a road trip soon, and this AR cache GC7WTEQ caught our eye. Requires the Metaverse app. Wife has it on her iPhone but I can't find it anywhere on the Android Play store for my Android phone. The cache page has links for both the iPhone and Android apps, but the Android link does not work. Is the Metaverse app still available for Android phones?

Our problem was that the app would open but not show any AL's the entire time we were in a remote State Park. And then complain "no signal". I had both our geocaching apps (Locus {me} and Cachly {spouse}) loaded with the stages from lab2gpx so we could visit the locations and write down the answers. But without having the knowledge/ability to fake GPS location later, we were done. The API clearly supports pre-downloading locations and questions, thanks to lab2gpx. So even the third party apps could deal with this if they would enable that in the API.

I find it really disappointing that we still cannot do Adventure Labs totally offline, with the same ease in which we do with geocaches.

Is there a separate app for this or is the basic Geooh GO app Android Auto compatible? I looked on the Play store and only see the one app and it does not mention Android Auto.

This web site you can access on your phone browser has a great amount of angles, intersections and projection calculators. http://geo.javawa.nl/coordcalc/index_en.html If there are Android users wondering the same thing, the 'GCC-Geocache Calculator' app is a great tool to have. I'm not aware of an equivalent for iPhone.

I have low expectations when searching for a cache left by a scout. The official scouting rules to earn a geocaching merit badge only require maintenance for 3 months. Once they get the badge, there's no further maintenance or interest. I'm sure there are some who continue with the sport. But the majority do not.

Would there be a way to allow your official API partner apps like Cachly or Locus to access the data but disallow other apps or ads? I had a recent issue where a CO had selected that option, thinking it might cut down on spam and ads but not realizing it would disallow the 'other' geocaching apps to access his logs or contact him. Once he realized the impact, he turned that option back off again. I suggest it might be helpful to explain that issue a little better on the web page when people are considering the Opt Out option.

Ah, I get it now. Thanks. Weird option, though. It means none of the authorized geocaching apps will display their info but the web site and the 'official' Geocaching app will.

Then the problem is with the API. The user is not actually Opted Out. Or maybe they opted out by mistake and then opted in again. The web site shows all the user info and maintenance posts. It's a park district employee with lots of other geocaches in the same park. Most curious.

Dang - I posted too soon. Web site is fine, Geocaching app is fine. The problem shows up in Locus.

There's a problem when a CO decides to Opt Out of info sharing. Look at https://coord.info/GC9JK4Y and the CO has opted out. His maintenance and disable logs are now blank. Now you can't contact him with a question and can't see why the cache is disabled. I think maintenance messages should be displayed even if the user opts out in other areas.

During a business trip to Detroit, before returning back home to Chicago, I allowed for a half day to cross the bridge to go into Windsor and earn an Ontario Canada badge. When asked by the border crossing guard, he asked what was the nature of my visit to Canada. My explanation of geocaching only made him more suspicious. "And what do you find in these hidden containers?" So I was directed to pull into the garage area for a full vehicle search. YIKES! You have to exit your car, and wait inside the building while they search your car. The woman at the counter began filling out a form documenting the detainment of this obviously suspicious character. Again, "Nature of your visit?" When I said geocaching, she lit up and said "Oh, I do it too!" "Did you cross just to earn an Ontario badge?" She ran to the door and yelled to the officers who were just getting ready to start going through my car, "He's Okay? He's just here for geocaching. Let him go through." And then she proceeded to tell me of a nice park about 4 miles away that had some nice trails and a bunch of nice geocaches.

My new phone does not have Ant+ support. I'm not sure I should bother since there are so few Chirp caches out there. I did some research and it looks like Tacx makes a USB dongle for Android phones. Their docs mention lots of fitness devices but not the Chirp. Has anyone added a Ant+ dongle to an Android phone for Chirp use?

The 2022 Ford Bronco has a geocaching Easter Egg hidden in (apparently) the navigation system. The video does not reveal where it is, but it looks like Arizona or Utah. How long will it be before we see a Found It getting posted? https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/videos/i-found-a-geocache-easter-egg-in-the-2022-ford-bronco/

That is a great point, and one that I had not considered! I think the two caches he had hidden that used magnetic projections were close to 10 years old at the time. Fortunately the distances were within 300 feet or so. And these were woodsy caches with ammo cans so it wasn't like hunting for micros. In the CO's case, he had intended it as an educational series that included deciphering features on a USGS topographical map, too. I did a quick check and in 2010 my declination was -3° instead of -4° today. I agree that it's way too complicated to expect the average cacher to know and be able to calculate the differences.

The difference between magnetic north and true north (declination) varies quite a bit depending on where you are. Here in Chicagoland, the difference is -4 degrees. A moderate distance would definitely be problematic. 186 feet at a half mile here in Chicagoland. In Los Angeles, the declination is +13 degrees. Seattle is +20. Might not even end up in the same county. As for your question? Yup, as long as the CO made it plain he was using magnetic north instead of true north. In my case, I would subtract 4 degrees from his projection instructions and then do the projection on the Garmin. We had an Army vet here who used magnetic coords on a couple of his classic old caches that needed projections. Fortunately the distances were smaller so it wasn't too awful if you did not know how to calculate the differences.

I have friends that occasionally hide a cache or create an event as a 'couple'. When you create a cache, you can type anything you want in the 'Placed By' field. So they will sometimes enter 'Fred and Mary' for example. And that's what shows on the cache page. But the cache is only 'owned' by the person creating the cache page. So only Fred gets the log notification emails. Mary can add the cache to her Watchlist and that way she can get the log notification emails, too. That's as close as you're going to get to that idea of 'sharing' a cache.

We found a few caches today (12/21) and our 'Peak" score did not register them either.

My friend has one that was advertised as a golf ball retriever.

Ah, thanks! I found an online converter that would convert from one datum to another. Converting from NAD27 to WGS84 puts my 'bogus' 1954 PDF coordinates within a few feet of my present day geocoding with Google Earth. Now to convince my caching buddy to take that longish hike in 90° weather again. 😁

I'm working on a puzzle cache where the cache page clue is a small area clip of an old USGS topo map with a circle on it to signify the search area. So I found a 1954 topo map on the USGS web site that perfectly matches the picture on the cache page. I did an overlay in Google earth and got some coordinates. I also have 'ILTopo11' from GPSFileDepot installed on my Garmin and in Basecamp and can verify the search spot there, too. We looked quite a while but did not find anything. We didn't realize at the time that the target circle was around 250' in diameter and it is pretty difficult terrain, so we didn't widen our search radius that wide. Before we try again, I thought I'd verify my previous sleuthing. It turns out that the PDF map I downloaded from USGS is a 'GeoPDF' so I opened it into the free Adobe reader and hovered my mouse over the selected spot and the coordinates in the GeoPDF are around 750 feet away from my geocoded coordinates and the coordinates in Garmin or Basecamp. So my question is.... Could they have been using a different Datum in 1954 than WGS84 that would account for the difference? I've looked online at several coordinate converters but haven't found anything promising.

I didn't know the GSAK built-in List Manager could handle the watchlist, too. Guess I don't need to use the macro anyway. Yes, I was using WatchListManager.gsk by Kai Team. It behaves exactly like the Locus menu option. Prints "CacheName added to the watchlist" on the watchlist page but does not actually add it. So I'll bet you're right that they are both using the same outdated call/URL. Thanks for your insight on this.

Did you do that using the List Manager in the Geocaching menu? I see that does work. So perhaps there was an API change a while back and both the macro and Locus need to be updated. Thanks for pointing that out.

I have noticed that both the GSAK macro for adding caches to the watchlist and the option in Locus 4.x for watchlist do not work. The Locus team is speculating that it's an API issue.